Being in Vienna, on your own, in an empty house, and not knowing too many people means I have been able to spend some more time on self entertainment. I bought a Playstation, partially for the games but also as a high def blu-ray player, and as a media center. Unfortunately without a computer network there doesn’t seem to be a way to get content (ripped DVDs, photos, music) to display on the player. I have had to concentrate on games (Uncharted 2, Batman Arkham Asylum, and Assasain’s Creed 2) and the meagre collection of DVDs I have with me – big recommendation for Generation Kill, and small one for Doctor Who.

Vienna has a decent enough English language cinema though, the Haydn. And with a small bit of effort I have managed to see 3 films there since I got here. They show the original English language films on digital projectors so 3D is available. The one restriction is that they can’t show a film here in English, until it has been released in a German version locally. That meant that “The men who stared at goats” has only just opened here, months after it left Irish cinemas.

In some cases though this works to my advantage. This afternoon I went to see the Ghost Writer. It has been out here since February, but anyone reading this in Ireland won’t see it until the middle of April. When it does come out it is well worth seeing. It’s an excellent old school thriller with a surprising twist. No explosions, no car chases, no gun battles, just tension and drama.

And yeah, the difference between Adam Lang and Tony Blair is tiny. But then that is part of the appeal. Pearce Brosnan does a great PM as well. Be careful reading about the film (and source book) because disgracefully, some reviewers have been giving away too much information about the big plot twist. And it is quite a twist, especially when you think of Adam Lang as being Tony Blair. As one US reviewer of the book said it’s:

“so shocking it simply can’t be true, though if it were it would certainly explain pretty much everything about the recent history of Great Britain.”

I would give it a +2 must see.